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08 February, 2010

We had a lovely day out at the beach yesterday with a big group of friends and their kids. The kind of day where everyone looks after whatever kid is closest to them, where the adults talk and drink beer and BBQ and the kids roam in packs and there is a lot of sand, salt, sunblock and sun. You know, the kind of days you remember from your childhood, those long summer days at the beach.

What? You don't remember those kind of days? No, neither do I! I had this this little moment of clarity about half way through as I watched Hazel playing with a couple of other little girls, doing something small-girlish with sand and water, that her childhood is going to be so very different than mine in a lot of ways. I grew up in Canada and yes we had long summer days and I played with my friends, but they weren't spent at the beach and there wasn't sand or sunblock or seagulls. We didn't mess around in boats. Well actually we did I suppose - on a muddy lake. It was a marvellous childhood and I know Hazel's will be too, but it makes me a little wistful sometimes that she won't know snow, she won't skate, she will have a different accent than me. They're not important things I know, but they do serve to remind me that sometimes I'm a stranger in a strange land!

I mentioned it to one of the other mums, who's Scottish, and she said that when she was out kayaking with one of her kids on the warm ocean, on a sunny day, on a beach that looked empty, that it suddenly hit her that this, this was why she was in New Zealand. And she's right - there are always compensations!

5 comments:

Lovely photos, I heard that you had a lovely afternoon this morning ;). We have family here from the UK and took them to the same beach on Saturday afternoon, they loved it, and so did we. It's the perfect beach for chilling, fun times and family.

I haven’t been out to Cornwallis for ages, the last time was pre-kid and in the middle of winter but I’m totally sold on it now! There were heaps and heaps of people there, but you’d hardly have known if not for the packed carpark, it sort of absorbed everyone somehow. We’ll be back!

Funny you should write this...I moved from the midwest where the only thing to do was fish, camp and water ski on lakes. Those are my childhood memories. We moved to North Carolina when our son was five and his summers are spent at the beach on the Atlantic coast. I'm actually quite jealous of his childhood. None-the-less, funny how it all changes...

Jacqui - I can so relate to what you said. I'm Canadian, from Ottawa and I now live in England (for the last 22 years). My girls don't have the same childhood I had - growing up in a rural area. We had hot sunny days, and cold snowy ones. But they do have so many other things here that I didn't have - we travel a lot, which is easy from here. Not so bad... just different.

Yes, there are definitely compensations to living in various countries, it's important to remember that and not get hung up on what you can't do (like travel from NZ to anywhere but Australia cheaply) I guess it hits most when you have kids and they can't do the things you feel made you who you are.